A few days ago, the list of "the most beautiful science and technology workers" in Beijing in 2022 was announced, and Liu Li, dean and professor of the Institute of Fashion Technology of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, was among them.

  During the preparations for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics (hereinafter referred to as the Beijing Winter Olympics), this beautiful and elegant woman with fluttering hair led the team members to develop competition uniforms for the nine participating national team athletes.

  From fashion show to ice and snow sports field

  In late 2018, Liu Li was given a special assignment to customize competition clothing for Chinese athletes Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who are about to compete in the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships.

  This is the first time that Liu Li's team has designed competition uniforms for ice and snow athletes.

At first, she thought that all she needed to do was to design the clothes beautifully, but after a closer look, she found that it was not the case.

"There are many ways for ice and snow sports clothing. Special clothing for competition must meet the requirements of athletes doing a lot of difficult movements, so the quality of the clothes should be light and the fabric should be elastic. Only after these can be considered the decorative effect." She said.

  Liu Li fumbled while doing it. She led the team members to work overtime and customized 6 sets of clothes for the two athletes within 3 weeks.

Surprisingly, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong won the championship in the clothes customized by Liu Li's team.

"The first contact with the development of ice and snow sports uniforms can help athletes achieve good results. We are very happy!" Liu Li couldn't hide her excitement.

  After that competition, Liu Li began to turn her attention from the gorgeous fashion show to the ice and snow sports arena.

The top domestic athletes are her ideal models, and the arena of Hu Chao and Long Xiang has become her new "show field".

  "Compared with the gorgeous fashion show, it is more challenging to develop competition clothes for athletes. At the same time, it can also be used to popularize science, so that more people can understand the importance of competition clothing and equipment. Moreover, I have the opportunity to make top athletes become my Model, I feel very lucky and proud." Liu Li said.

  The more you know, the deeper Liu Li's understanding and thinking about ice and snow sports clothing.

"More than 95% of athletes' good results are due to their own abilities, but at least their clothes and equipment should not hold them back. In the competition of top athletes, 0.01 seconds can determine the ownership of a medal. In order to achieve this 0.01 second surpassing , we will use technology to help make clothing and equipment the ultimate." She said.

  For a long time, my country's ice and snow sports athletes wear competition clothes of foreign brands.

Liu Li and team members found through research that some of the competition uniforms provided by foreign countries are not suitable for Chinese athletes.

  So, she began to think about designing competition uniforms for more athletes engaged in ice and snow sports, and successfully applied for project support from the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2019.

  Set four goals of "fast, protective, warm and beautiful"

  During the preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics, Liu Li, as the general manager of the national key R&D project "Key Technologies for R&D of High-Performance Clothing for Winter Sports and Training Competitions", led 10 units of the project team to gather high-quality resources from the whole industry to overcome difficulties.

According to the requirements, she aimed at the key advantageous projects in my country's ice and snow sports, and began to make competition clothing for short track speed skating, road speed skating, figure skating and other projects that are expected to compete for gold medals.

  With such a huge project, where do you start?

  Starting from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in the United States, Liu Li's team analyzed the competition uniforms of the medalists in the corresponding events of the previous Winter Olympics and World Cup, drew the structure diagram, found out the details and features, and collected the clothes worn by many ice and snow athletes. Competition uniform.

  They took these suits to the lab, tested and analyzed them one by one, looking for the secrets hidden in the clothes.

Among them, a competition uniform of a well-known foreign sports brand was made more than ten years ago. It may be aging, but it still has excellent performance in drag reduction performance, which makes Liu Li feel incredible.

  After thorough research, Liu Li set four key technical goals of "fast, protective, warm and beautiful" for her independent design of ice and snow sports uniforms.

Specifically, it is necessary to reduce the resistance of speed skating competition suits, to ensure that the skates cannot cut through the fabric of short track speed skating competition suits, to make the Winter Olympics competition suits have high thermal performance, to make the figure skaters "combat" "Robe" shows beauty while making it easier for athletes to complete difficult movements...

  In order to meet the requirements of the competition, Liu Li's team set a goal of reducing drag by 5%.

But in fact, she didn't know what to do, and she didn't know if she could finish it.

  "Innovation must be done from the source, and only in this way can catch-up and overtake be achieved." Liu Li said, from theoretical innovation to weaving new fabrics, from increasing elasticity to finding mechanisms that are conducive to drag reduction... These works are all led by domestic scientists. Completed.

  When designing the short track speed skating competition suits, Liu Li and her team members innovatively adopted 3D printing, offset printing or laser engraving and other methods in the process, and developed a series of dimpled textured and drag-reducing functional fabrics to make short track The drag of the speed skating event suit has been reduced by 10%.

  After the clothing is designed, it must be tested and screened in the wind tunnel.

The garments were wind tunnel tested for more than 1,000 hours, and Liu Li and her team spent two or three times that amount in the wind tunnel.

  Speaking of her team, Liu Li bluntly said that "the achievement of results is inseparable from their efforts".

  Most of the team of more than 30 people are girls.

"Girls today are more resilient, more able to endure hardships, and have higher overall quality. During the test in the wind tunnel, they stayed with me until three or four o'clock in the morning. When they were tired, they would lie on the table or on the ground to rest. Instant noodles and snacks are just fine, no complaints." Liu Li said.

  Once the suits are ready, they are tried on by the athletes and then adjusted based on their feedback.

Liu Li's student Wu Yan recalled that in order to understand the physical condition of athletes, their needs for clothing and their experience of trying on, Liu Li often drove 6 to 7 hours from downtown Beijing to the training base in Hebei. 3D data collection of multiple national athletes.

  Liu Li recalled that Chinese speed skater Gao Tingyu's competition obedience model was designed to fabric manufacturing. The team compared 56 types of clothing structures, and made 21 types of hats alone.

  What makes Liu Li gratified is that in September 2021, Gao Tingyu broke the personal record of 33.83 in the speed skating "China Cup" world 500-meter speed skating competition in the competition uniform developed by her and her team members, and set a new record. Best results in the country.

  Started developing competition uniforms for the national swimming team

  As the project leader, the two words that Liu Li says the most is "innovation", and she herself is a practitioner.

  In the design of figure skating competition clothing, Liu Li innovatively integrated Chinese ink and wash elements and Suzhou embroidery techniques, showing Chinese culture and national heritage, and won the affirmation of athletes.

  In addition to scientific research, Liu Li also passed on innovative ideas to students.

As a teacher, Liu Li respects students' ideas very much, creates a relaxed learning atmosphere for students, and never acts arbitrarily.

  Wang Lanmin, Liu Li's doctoral student, said: "Sometimes, because we are young and our knowledge is limited, our ideas may not be mature enough, but the teacher will not attack us. She always emphasizes independent thinking, encourages us to continue to innovate, and puts a lot of her Share new knowledge with us.”

  In addition, Liu Li also subtly teaches students how to face pressure and deal with emergencies.

  Li Yimeng, Liu Li's graduate student, recalled that during the design of the figure skating uniforms for the Beijing Winter Olympics, due to the sudden increase in training intensity and the doubling of psychological pressure in the approaching competition, the weight and body shape of the athletes changed significantly. When the game is close at hand, the game clothes they designed have also been fully decorated.

  "If you adjust the clothes on the original basis, the time is too tight and the task is too difficult!" Li Yimeng said.

  Faced with this unexpected situation, Liu Li responded quickly.

She said that the athlete's clothing must be fit and comfortable and not affect the athlete's performance.

To this end, she mobilized almost all available resources, from contacting the factory for emergency re-printing to contacting Su embroidery teacher for embroidery, to post-production and decoration, she led the team members day and night to re-create the latest sports for the athletes. The shape of the competition uniform has been highly recognized by coaches and athletes.

  Now, recalling the preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics, Liu Li is filled with emotion.

"It's been a hard and rewarding journey." She said that she and her team members were racing against time with a sense of mission, and this pressure was not released until the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

  However, just like some athletes have started to prepare for the next Olympic Games, Liu Li has also set off.

Some time ago, she received the task of designing competition clothing for the Summer Olympics - to develop a "shirt" designed by the Chinese for the national swimming team.

  "Continue research and development, and keep improving." Liu Li hopes that my country will have the ability to fully independently develop competition uniforms as soon as possible. She looks forward to one day in the future, when people mention the competition clothing developed by China, people will give them a thumbs up.

  Our reporter Dai Xiaopei